Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-10-23

OF gems d'arme with drawn swords
were standing in front of the building
while number of others were scat.
tered about near at hand. Upson and
had to get out. So, rousing him,
dressed and was escorted out. l was
shown into room twelve or fifteen
feet square whose sole article
of furniture was rickety ta-
BILE. Well, this was mysterious.
What did it mean? Why did
the soldiers look SO wonderfully wise
and preserve such a stolid silence ?
Upson had been rather slow in getting
dressed, but soon made his appear
ance between two soldiers, with look
of unfeigned surprise.
Hello, Upson," exclaimed, with
a faint attempt at jocularity, "we are
prisoners of war" There we stood
with the room full of soldiers, all as
mute as dummies. Presently there
entered a magnificently uniformed Of
ficer, perfect specimen OF Rus
sian soldiery. With bow, he po-
litely asked us in German for our
passports. These were handed over
and sent out to be examined. "Was
anders haben siee" (What else have
you? next inquired the military dig
nitary, and we were obliged to see
our satchels unpacked and every little
article closely inspected. Among
other things in our handgrips were
several photographs of friends in the
States. These were examined, and to
-atisfy themselves that the pictures
did not contain some hidden message
that might resultin the overthrow of
the government, magnifying glass
was procured and several OF the
curious old gens-d'arme gave them q
close scrutiny"
81 began to see now what they
wanted. We were suspected of being
Russian nihilists or Anarchist spies !!
This was getting serious. With sigh
for my native land, or the security OF
the college at Berlin, l recalled the
fate of the young and beautiful Lena
Bottolowiski q believe that was the
name) and Michael Droskaniff, who,
with hundreds of others, were exiled
to Siberia without being given an op-
portunity to even telegraph their situ-
alton to friends. ''Wo sind ihre brie-
fenW (Where are your letters p
They were produced, but as the bewil-
dered champion of the Gar could
not read English they were handed
back. By this time our passports
were brought back, the messen-
ger calling the commanding officer
aside. After brief confab in Russian
we were informed that we were, "all
right and would be allowed to 60.
Then our captols began to grow pro-
foundly polite. Then they tried to
explain things, and looked sheepish.
His excellency, the commandant,
with many bows and apologies, ex-
planned to us that he had received
oruers from the Chief of Police to ar
rest us as Anarchist spies, and he had
simply done his duty. OF course we
might go anywhere we chose after
that. l afterward learned that the
place of our arrest was Ii village called
Grense, meaning boundary and
was located on the boundary between
Russia and Germany. A Frenchmrn
whom we met the next day told me
the same thing had occurred to him,
and he had barely escaped with his
life. We had two theories as to the
cause OF our arrest. That little Pole
who so persistently dogged our foot
steps was either thief, who, foiled in
his attempt at robbery, complained of
us as spies, or was a government spy
himself, whose suspicious were
aroused by our fast traveling.-[Al-
bany Journal.